The present invention relates to methods of printing documents and apparatuses thereof, and more specifically to printing documents in a manner that reduces the use of paper per print job.
Popular print drivers such as the Adobe PostScript driver for Windows 95 offer options to select duplex, and N-Up printing. When used appropriately, these options can save tremendous amounts of paper. This same opportunity also applies to digital copiers such as the Xerox DC 230 that can duplex and N-Up paper originals while copying.
However, these features require particular effort on the part of the user to select options appropriate for each document printed or copied. It follows that the potential savings will not be realized if the user is either not aware of the features, is not familiar with the best ways to use them, or does not remember or take the time to use them daily.
Another problem is that print driver settings used for one print job may remain and be accidentally applied to future jobs. This may render some future print jobs unacceptable and result in more wasted paper.
All references cited in this specification, and their references, are hereby incorporated by reference where appropriate for relevant teachings of additional or alternative details, features, and/or technical background.
Embodiments disclosed herein are directed to a simple method for delegating paper saving decisions to the printing device so that each job can be optimized automatically. This feature could be prominently displayed in both the print driver UI and in the digital copier""s or printer""s local UI to draw attention to it, and to enable the customer to select smart paper saving mode in a single step.
Embodiments include a paper-conserving method for printing a document, which includes determining the number of pages in a document to be printed and automatically selecting a paper conserving print layout for the document when at least two pages are detected; and duplexing when the document has two or more pages. Other embodiments include printing N-up when the document has 3 or more pages, where N has a value of at least 2.